The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters

The title of commander in chief refers to the head of state who is holds the highest degree of command of a country’s armed forces. McPherson devotes Chapter 9 to a discussion of Lincoln’s strategies as commander in chief, highlighting the fact that these decisions are central to Lincoln’s place in history. McPherson asserts that Lincoln’s legacy as commander in chief is impressive given that he did not have much military experience and had to learn on the job. Finally, the discussion is McPherson’s attempt to analyze Lincoln’s presidency from a military history perspective in an attempt to counter the fact that military history has fallen out of popularity since the turn to social history that began in the 1960s.

The Compromise of 1850 was a bill package passed in the United States Congress to temporarily calm sectional conflicts over enslavement prior to the beginning of the Civil War. In Chapter 2, McPherson explains that California’s admission to the Union as a free state prompted the first threats of secession. To offset the admission of California and the abolition of trafficking in enslaved people in Washington, DC, the Compromise created the New Mexico and Utah Territories and placed no restrictions on enslavement in these regions. The Compromise also guaranteed enslavement without federal interference in Washington, DC, and amended the Fugitive Slave Act to allow federal marshals, commissioners, and the army to return enslaved people who had escaped to free territories.

The Declaration of Paris was a multilateral agreement established in 1856 to define international law on the topic of warfare at sea. The Declaration of Paris is featured in Chapter 5, as the blockade policy had implications for the Confederacy’s attempt to gain support from Europe and was one of the many factors influencing Britain’s policy of nonintervention. After the Confederacy mistakenly admitted the effectiveness of the Union blockade, they switched their strategy to appealing to European powers for recognition of Confederate nationhood on the strength that doing so would be a first step toward ending the cotton famine.

The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863 and declared freedom for enslaved people in Confederate states. It is featured throughout the text because emancipation is considered to be one of the greatest legacies of the Civil War. In Chapter 5, McPherson mentions the Emancipation Proclamation’s role in British nonintervention. In Chapter 7, he references its impact to refute the self-emancipation thesis, and in Chapter 8, it is a part of the discussion on the evolution of Lincoln’s perspective around race and abolition. In Chapter 10, it plays a role in Lincoln’s national strategy as Commander in Chief, and in Chapter 11, McPherson identifies it as the groundwork for the 13th Amendment.

The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified in 1870 and granted Black American men the right to vote. McPherson references it at the ends of Chapters 4 and 11 to highlight the Civil War’s legacy in the transformation and nationalization of the United States’s character. Chapters 8 and 12 reference the 15th Amendment in relation to the former Confederacy’s opposition to and active violation of Black people’s right to vote. The amendment is also relevant in Chapter 1, where McPherson first mentions it as the constitutional basis for the Civil Rights Act of the 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 and granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved people. It also restricts states from denying people equal protection of the laws or depriving people of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law. Along with the 15th Amendment, McPherson highlights the 14th Amendment as one of the greatest legacies of the Civil War and frames it as the constitutional basis of the civil rights legislation in the 1960s. In Chapter 12, McPherson emphasizes that the 14th and the 15th Amendment provided constitutional sanction for the passage of legislation during Reconstruction, which made it a federal offense to interfere with voting rights and made it a felony to deprive someone of their civil and political rights. Thus, the 14th and 15th Amendments worked in tandem to expand the power of the federal government and to transform the nation to centralized polity.

The Mexican-American War refers to the armed conflict from 1846 to 1848, during which the United States invaded Mexico after Texas declared itself to be an independent republic and appealed to the United States for annexation. In Chapter 2, McPherson also articulates the connection between westward expansion and disputes over enslavement in the newly ceded territories, explaining that these conflicts ultimately led to the Civil War.

Reconstruction refers to the period from 1865 to 1877. During this time frame, the federal government tried to reincorporate the former Confederate states into the Union by rebuilding Southern society and by including the establishment and protection of the rights of formerly enslaved people. In Chapter 12, McPherson highlights the determination of white Southerners to resist progressive Republican reforms and analyzes the mounting violence against the Black population and Republicans in the South. He also discusses the federal government’s efforts to remedy the escalating violence and the violation of rights carried out by racist social clubs and paramilitary organizations.